The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane (22 page)

Holding his hands outstretched as if an
attack were imminent, and giving out with a strangled, “Oh, no ya
doesn’t. Not again, or me name’s not Vernon Q. Cake!” the terrified
man executed a former foot soldier’s excellent About-Face and
bolted for the bowels of the house, thereby abandoning his post and
allowing the enemy to breach his lines without even a hint of
resistance.

As he was to remark to one of his cronies at
the neighborhood tavern the next day, he—Vernon Q. Cake, late of
His Majesty’s Fifth Foot and a man who had served in more than one
fearful battle—would do the same again without shame if ever either
of those two fire-breathing giants were to blink in his direction,
“so crazy-mad and weird-like they wuz.”

For as great an impression as first Avanoll
and then Tansy made on manservant Cake, it was a pity that they
took as little notice of him as they did. Tansy’s major concern
during the ride to Half Moon Street had been how to gain entrance
to Sir Rollin’s lodgings. The most notice she took of the man Cake
was to be relieved at his seeming cooperation, and only a little
chagrined that he did not stay around long enough to inform her of
the Duke and Emily’s presence within.

Yet, still a bit heady with this first easy
victory, she lost no time in surveying her captured territory—in
this case a rather shabby dark foyer—before she counted slowly to
ten to compose herself and slow her racing pulse. The first door
she then approached led into a masculine bedroom fitted out in
ancient if rather sybaritic splendor that, Tansy thanked the gods,
showed no signs of recent Occupancy.

The next minuscule room she and the reluctant
Farnley entered appeared to be a sort of masculine receiving room,
to be used when entertaining the gentler sex. It, too, was empty.
That left but one door at the end of the hall, other than the one
the servant had used, which led most probably to the kitchen. Tansy
pressed her ear against the thick oak paneling and heard indistinct
voices, apparently raised in anger.

“This is it,” she mouthed silently to
Farnley, whose courage and physical presence had both retreated
closer to the still-ajar front door—or bolt-hole, depending on
whether the portal was thought of by Tansy or the valet. She cast
him a look of utter disgust and mentally adjusted the number of her
assault force from two to one before taking a steadying breath,
depressing the double latches, and giving the twin panels a
gigantic shove that propelled them against the walls inside the
room with an explosive
Ba-Boom
that robbed the room’s
occupants of all powers of speech and movement and succeeded in
gaining their undivided attention.

While three pairs of startled eyes goggled at
this tall, black-velvet cloaked creature who had burst upon the
scene so precipitously, Tansy, in her turn, surveyed the room—which
appeared to be a private study—and its occupants.

First to fall under her scrutiny was the
figure of her recalcitrant charge, who was still buttoned into her
outerwear, topped off by a ridiculously youthful looking chip-straw
hat tied under her chin by means of a huge pink and white checked
grosgrain ribbon. Cowering in a corner, she was standing beside a
bandbox undoubtedly crammed full of the necessities of life:
toothbrush and powder, a Penny Press novel, three pair of kid
gloves, a locked diary, and a half-eaten box of chocolates.

Emily looked frightfully overset, woefully
helpless, painfully young, and—as soon as she understood the caped
figure to be her cousin Tansy—blessedly relieved. This relief was
shared by Tansy, who was assured Emily’s virtue, if not her
reputation, was still intact.

Next, Tansy’s eyes raked over the villain of
the piece, a thin-lipped, dark-complected man some women found
handsome but who Tansy scorned as attempting to look sinister and
succeeding only in looking as if his liver was slightly off. Yet
Mrs. Radcliffe had not gained her so-large following of readers
without a great love for gothic heroes who appeared to be much of a
sameness with Sir Rollin, so either Tansy’s taste was too
particular or the followers of the Minerva Press were more romantic
than the experienced (for “experienced” read “on-the-shelf
spinster”) Miss Tamerlane.

In any event. Tansy wasted no more than a few
seconds on the man.

She lastly turned her eyes to the right to
see, standing with about half of the fair-sized room between
himself and Sir Rollin, the person of the Duke of Avanoll. The look
on his face defied description, being neither surprised nor
indignant nor even remotely condemning; in fact, if there was a
glimmering of any emotion to be discerned, the Duke would have to
be termed to have looked amused.

“Good evening to you, cousin,” the Duke said
in his normal tone at last, ending the increasingly tense silence.
“I do hope you do not have your heart set on a late supper, for I
fear Sir Rollin here is promised to me for the next few minutes and
is unable to play the proper host,” he drawled in patently unmeant
apology.

“Oh, Tansy,” Emily broke in, her voice fast
rising to hysterical shrillness. “You must make them stop. Rollin
has admitted he meant to ruin me, not marry me—the beast!—and
Ashley will not rest until he has killed him. How was I to know
Rollin was a liar, Tansy? He was so sweet and in all things
considerate until tonight when he—he told me he was amusing himself
with me!” she admitted, her china-blue eyes awash with a fresh
batch of enormous tears.

Tansy turned to her young cousin, her face
showing nary a trace of sympathy, and sniffed in a most unladylike
way, “What were you expecting, you bacon-brained nitwit—a romantic
flight to Gretna and marriage over the anvil, followed by a
leisurely honeymoon touring the Lake District? Emily, you are the
most appalling idiot imaginable, and if you get out of this scrape
with your skin intact you would be wise to stick to me like a
barnacle until such time as you acquire a little sense.”

“But, Tansy—”

Tansy shook her head bemusedly. “Girl, never
before in my checkered existence have I come across anyone so
capable of giving me such a bellyache, and believe me, you had to
go some to reach the top of a long list of morons, dolts, ninnies,
and downright jackasses to do it. But outstrip them all you did,
and by a long chalk!”

This outburst was gaped at by Sir Rollin, and
softly applauded by Avanoll, while Emily went off into a
depressingly predictable temper tantrum. Tansy expected at any
moment the girl would fling herself prone upon the floor and drum
her heels like the spoiled brat who had been her charge in
Sussex—and whom she was constrained to punish for tucking up three
goldfish in her crayon box, saying she could use their bright color
on her next drawing.

A pretty picture, an impetuous elopement, the
reasons may have varied, but the spur behind the acts were alike:
both girls had been spoiled beyond all thought for any but their
own desires. For a moment Tansy’s palm itched to make stinging
contact with Emily’s round bottom, the urge so strong she nearly
forgot she was still a long way from solving the most pressing
problem of how to get Emily and the Duke home and the whole affair
buried beyond any hope of discovery by Society.

So, as Emily’s fit of weeping reduced her to
a quaking bundle of blue, velvet-trimmed pelisse reposing
conveniently out of harm’s way in the far corner of the room, Tansy
directed her energies to making a swift end to the affair. The most
dangerous situation now was the very visible intent of the two men
again glaring balefully at each other from across the room.

First, the rug had been rolled back and all
the furniture pushed to one side. Secondly, both men had shed their
coats, cravats, and Hessians, and were standing up only in their
stocking feet, breeches, and rolled-up shirtsleeves. Each already
held equally wicked-looking blades, making their intentions
impossible to misconstrue by even the most dull-witted of fellows
(like Farnley, who had by now ventured so far as to stick his head
round the corner of the arch for a look-see).

“Now isn’t this just all too jolly,” Tansy
observed silkily, as her nimble mind raced madly in search of a
convincing argument. “And what do you intend to prove by this feat
of derring-do, Ashley?” she asked, willing to divert his anger onto
herself. “I swear, cousin, for a man who decries impetuosity in
others—namely myself—you are a sorry example of deliberate,
well-thought-out action. Not only did you attempt rescue on the
North Road mounted only on horseback, you now intend to duel down a
man with complete disregard for the Code of Honor, not to mention
the resulting notoriety news of such an engagement will bring down
upon the shoulders of Emily, who regrettably has earned every bit
of censure, and also your grandmother, who doesn’t deserve such
shabby treatment.”

Avanoll and the until now curiously silent
Whitstone either didn’t hear or refused to heed Tansy’s words and,
exchanging nods, went on their guards as if they had never been
disturbed. They made to touch sword tips in salute before
commencing a fight that would end with one or both of them spilling
their claret all over the bare boards of the room.

At least that was the most usual ending to a
duel between two disagreeing gentlemen, but then normally duels are
witnessed by seconds and a benevolent surgeon—not a vaporish young
miss and an eccentric, unflappable, over-aged hoyden bent on
putting a halt to such dangerous nonsense.

The swords clinked as they met in salute, and
the men held their weapons pointed directly upwards. The hilts
pressed against their chins in a final theatrical gesture (the
moves all dictated by some masculine sense of peculiar etiquette
sanctioning cold-bloodedly setting out to dispatch each other by
means of pricks, stabs, and slashes inflicted by razor-sharp
weapons).

Next on the agenda came the duel itself, but
this was destined never to take place, for at that moment two shots
rang out loudly in the quiet room, the reports following one upon
the other in rapid succession (drowning out Emily’s three-octave
spanning scream), and the tips of the two rapiers were somehow
severed and sent winging into the air, rendering the swords a good
half-foot shorter and the two combatants as incapable of movement
as the molded figures at a wax museum.

When the Duke recovered his voice, he turned
his head stiffly and spoke to the woman holding his silver-inlaid
pistols, her head wreathed in a cloud of blue-grey smoke. “You,
madam, are beyond a shred of doubt the most incorrigible nuisance
this side of Hades,” he observed calmly, with the resigned demeanor
of a man who has found the Fates against him at every turn. “I can
recall your saying you were taught at your father’s knee, but you
didn’t bother to inform me he taught you to shoot as well as speak
like a man,” he remarked in a slightly aggrieved tone.

Tansy’s only response was to use one of the
pistols to help wave away the cloud of blue smoke that still
wreathed her head.

But the duke wasn’t finished. “It can only be
a kindness if you would present me with a full written accounting
of your, er, talents in the morning. I do so abhor surprises, you
know,” he ended, still maintaining a remarkable control over his
temper, as well as still clutching the shattered remains of his
once-favorite sword. He lowered the blade, then favored his cousin
with a mock salute. “I cannot speak for Whitstone here, but I for
one know when I am bested.”

Tansy gave a slight bow of her own head in
humble acknowledgement of Avanoll’s concession, hiding as she did
so her twinkling brown eyes and self-satisfied smirk. “I accept
your surrender, cousin, and believe we should now discuss the terms
of peace.”

At last Sir Rollin found his voice and added
his mite to this bizarre conversation. “You are to be pitied,
Avanoll, if these two are any example of your relation. A
melodramatic infant and a pistol-toting Antidote! Egad, no wonder
you forced a duel on me. You were looking for a quick and
relatively painless way of ending it all without having to pull the
plug on your life by some means less grisly than hanging yourself
with your smoking-jacket sash, or splashing your brains all over
the walls with a pistol shot. Much as I have never cared for you,
old fellow, I am sorry to have added to your headache,” Whitstone
ended with uncharacteristic sympathy.

Tansy ignored the degrading description of
herself as an Antidote and spoke only to inform his grace that one
of his pistols was fading a hair to the left and was he aware of
this imperfection? When her cousin refrained from replying, she
merely shrugged and handed the spent pistols to Farnley, who eyed
them in genuine horror and held them most gingerly at arm’s-length,
as if they might explode at any time. His horror was not confined
to the firearms alone, as it included a newborn respect for Miss
Tansy and a profound hope that he never nudged such a deadly shot
as she into anger sufficient as to compel her to use his
protuberant ears for target practice.

It seemed the melodrama was nearly over for
the evening as Avanoll—his usual good judgment at last overcoming
his brotherly thirst for vengeance (as well as his inborn masculine
pride, which had been badly bruised by Whitstone’s arrogant
dismissal of his grace’s ability to protect his own against such a
rake-shame no-good as he).

Though still rather put out over the episode,
he suddenly realized himself to be quite honestly fatigued, and
curtly summoned his sister to his side in preparation for departing
Sir Rollin’s abode before Tansy took it upon herself to preach
Whitstone a homily on morals. Here was still a decidedly militant
glint in her eyes. Too, his sister might yet swoon in a dead faint
and have to be hauled to his carriage, slung over his shoulder like
a sack of meal.